There is an increasing need for surface ships that can transit oceans with greater speed, i.e. in the range of forty to fifty knots, and with high stability because of the commercial requirements for rapid and safe ocean transits of perishable cargoes, high cost capital goods, military strategic sealift cargoes, cargoes whose dimensions and density cannot be accepted for air freight, and other time sensitive freight, particularly in light of the increasing worldwide acceptance of “just-in-time” inventory and stocking practices. Today's container ships are tending towards greater size, for reduced cargo ton-mile costs, carrying up to 25,000 tons of containerized cargo at a time. This necessitates their visiting a number of ports on both sides of an ocean crossing to load and unload cargo. This is time-consuming and means that the largest ships can only undertake a relatively small number of ocean crossings per year, thus limiting the available financial turnover on their considerable investment cost.
Numerous approaches have been proposed for achieving high speed ocean crossing. These include using smaller ships, semi-planing hulls, catamarans, multi-hulls, hydrofoils, surface effect vessels. In association with high speed vessels, highly efficient loading and unloading systems have been proposed to increase the number of trips achievable in an annual time period.
One such vessel is a monohull fast ship as proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,581,508, by Giles, which is incorporated herein by reference. The monohull design is said to be a semi planing hull designed for carrying on the order of 10,000 tons at transoceanic transit speeds of up to 37 to 50 knots. Other designs include a surface effect vessels that incorporate rigid catamaran-like side hulls and bow and stern seals to create a plenum pressurized by air. The result is a craft which is 80 percent supported by pressurized air and 20 percent supported by buoyancy. When the plenum is pressurized (on-cushion), the wetted surface of the side hulls is reduced, reducing drag and allowing high speeds.